Enameling

[Senft]

Has anyone here played with enameling on their forged steel pieces, such as leaves etc.? If so how did you do it?

[IronAlchemy]

Senft,

I have done a little with flame enameling as it is called. I learned it from Clay Spencer whose wife does enameling. I have mainly used it as an accent for a few leaves in a small design or for white dogwood flowers with blush shading. Sorry but I uncharacteristically don't have any pictures handy. If I can find any in my collection, I'll post them later.

Here are my notes from Clay's demonstration:

Background:

• Klyr Fire - a material that helps enamel powders stick to the surface
• Veins or chisel detail will be obscured by the enamels so they need to be very bold to show at all
• Use medium expansion enamels designed for copper
• Colors can be mixed
• Use #2030 fusion flux
  

Process:

1. Clean surface - does not need to be shiny
2. Apply Klyr Fire with brush
3. Use small sieve to dust on flux lightly to completely cover surface (borax can be used)
4. Dust on enamel to completely cover
5. Dry Klyr Fire on hotplate on low
6. Fuse the enamel using a propane hand torch; follow these steps and don't hurry
   

a. Slowly heat to be sure Klyr Fire is dry. (Do not let it bubble - very bad.) You can recoat at this stage without cooling.

b. Increase heat until it goes through an "orange peel" stage

c. Colors will change when it is done (this stage takes ~1 min @ 1500 in a kiln)

You can use paper patterns to apply designs when sieving powders.

Order enamels from

Thompson Enamel
PO Box 310
Newport, KY 41072

info@thompsonenamel.com or
sales@thompsonenamel.com

[Senft]

Great! Thanks so much, I'm gonna try this.